


Shine a Light

by clarityhiding



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, IN SPACE!, Jason Todd is Red Hood, JayTim Week 2020, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Protective Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown is Robin, Tim Drake is Missing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: The Red Hood arrives in Gotham more than ready to teach the Bats a few lessons. He shakes things up, starts making his mark on the criminal underworld, then takes a break to wreak a little vengeance on his replacement—only this isn’t the Robin he came looking for? Time to do a little detective work and figure out what the hell is going on with the help of a few unlikely allies.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 111
Kudos: 412
Collections: JayTimWeek





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 5: Casefic/ ~~Detective Tim or~~ Detective Jason of JayTim Week 2020, it's (hopefully) the start of a new series. Let's see how this goes??
> 
> Many thanks to chibi_nightowl for all her help with this. <3

Before Jason leaves for Gotham, Talia visits to give him one last update. He expects her to hand over the information packet and be on her merry way after a few cloying words, but for once she lingers. She draws him into a conversation about his plans and plots and, before he really realizes what's happening, she draws him elsewhere, into the bedroom of his small safehouse and, ultimately, into the bed there.

Intellectually, Jason knows Talia is a gorgeous woman. Not his type—even if his brain didn't have a hard time separating her as a woman from the fact that she's Bruce's old squeeze, he's never been attracted to people just as likely to knife him as kiss him. But she presses him down into the bed, and he has a strong will, but hers is stronger, forceful. Terrifying. He's something lethal now, but that doesn't mean he hasn't lost all sense of reason when it comes to self-preservation.

He lets her take what she wants, tells himself it's what he wants too. She's beautiful, and like all of her family, it isn't as if she looks her age. Any man would count himself lucky to share a night with her.

She eventually leaves, but he stays in the bed, curled up under the covers. He feels empty in a way he hasn't since he first woke up in a dark, too-small space, choking on stale air.

When he at last drags himself to his feet, he digs out his lighter and sets the packet she brought alight.

If he's going to do this, he'll do it on his own from here on out. The price Talia al Ghul demands is one he refuses to pay more than once.

* * *

A month into his glorious return, Jason finds himself growing increasingly frustrated. Things are going slow in Gotham, the scattered, disparate nature of the city's criminal organizations is making his attempts to take over a lot more difficult than he initially expected. It likely would go faster and smoother if he still had access to Talia's network and connections but he quickly shoves that thought away as soon as it surfaces. Whatever tentative truce he forged with her following his resurrection was shattered and broken as a result of her actions, and he now knows he can no longer trust her. Was likely a fool to ever trust her in the first place.

The setbacks resulting from his decision to cut ties are annoying at best, frustrating at worst, and he feels an itch to get _something_ accomplished. He's had a number of confrontations with Batman and Nightwing so far, encounters that leave him feeling angry and awful, mixed up inside almost as bad as he was after Talia's final visit. He isn't sure of how he now fits in with the people who once professed to be his family, just that he's no longer a part of it. Somehow, that makes everything even worse.

Still, there's been a definite lack of one presence in particular as he's run across rooftops, chasing, taunting, and sometimes even fleeing when the Bats got too close. Since his return to Gotham, Jason hasn't seen Robin once, and that nags at him, frustrates and mollifies in equal measure. It's clear Batman has either forbidden Drake from going out or sent him away while the uncertain element of the mysterious Red Hood terrorizes criminal and vigilante alike. Jason both appreciates the Bat's concern, and hates it, hates that the man is showing more care for an upstart stranger than he ever did for the boy he professed to call his son. Even more, he hates that Batman presumes that out of sight means out of danger, something he should have learned the falsity of years ago.

Jason hadn't planned to seek out or involve Robin for months yet, but he can't allow this kind of stupid, blind trust to go unpunished. Setting aside his affairs in Gotham, he takes a weekend trip to San Francisco.

It's simple enough work to subdue the rest of the Titans, cornering Robin on his own in the Tower's Memorial Hall—an ironic location for this confrontation, considering that it is Batman's own lack of memory that has brought this about. Jason pins the kid down and is about to let loose when he stops and takes a good, long look at the hero under him. The pause is a mistake on his part, since Robin immediately takes advantage of it, throwing a kick at his solar plexus, a hook to his jaw. That alone wouldn't be enough to take Jason down, but the moves caused enough of a distraction to allow Robin to pop back up into the perfect position to deliver a crippling stomp to his instep.

Staggering back, Jason braces himself against a wall, fighting to regain his breath so he can ask the question that has been plaguing him since he finally got a good look at the teen in front of him. "What the actual fuck. When the hell did the Bat trade out for a new model?"

Robin spits blood on the floor, then shakes her blond hair out of her face. "A couple months back. The last Robin had to retire, so the boss gave me the job. I think it was just supposed to be temporary, but…" She shrugs and falls silent, making no move towards him, though her fists remain raised.

Two months ago would have been just after Talia's visit. Apparently that final info packet actually had contained new and relevant information, since by burning it instead of reading it, he missed this particular development entirely.

"Huh." Jason looks the girl up and down, trying to place her in the grand scheme of things. "…Spoiler, right?" Stephanie Brown, his memory supplies. Daughter of C-list Gotham rogue Cluemaster, onetime girlfriend of both Robin and Tim Drake.

"I'm Robin," she snaps, hands clenching tighter in her gloves.

"You don't stop being something just because you change your name," is out of Jason's mouth before he can really think.

"I guess not," she sneers, looking pointedly at the red tunic he's currently wearing, a sized-up version of the Robin suit her predecessor wore. "Oracle said there were rumors about who you are, but I can't believe you actually have the gall to wear that after everything you've done."

"It was mine before it was ever yours," he protests, but the fight has already mostly left him.

"And it was Nightwing's first. It's a legacy title and costume, it passes from person to person. Stop acting like you've got more right to it than anyone else."

He wants to argue, but he honestly can't find it in him at this point. This isn't the Robin he came here to fight. This isn't his replacement. It's his replacement's replacement, which is so mind-boggling that it begs a question. "What happened to him?"

"Nightwing?" she asks, looking slightly thrown.

"No, birdie number three. Drake."

This time, she glances away when she answers. "I told you. He had to retire. His parents found out about him being Robin and… and his dad made him stop."

"There's something else," he presses, because he can _feel_ it. There's something off here, something wrong with the way she's acting. An air of defeat weighing down her shoulders that shouldn't be there, particularly when she was well on her way to regaining ground when their fight was derailed. "You said you being Robin was only meant to be temporary, which implies the Bat thought Drake was coming back."

"Yeah, well. Wouldn't that be great. Him coming back." She swallows thickly, finally dropping her fists so she can wrap her arms around herself. "I guess you've been too busy to notice it on all the news channels, but Tim Drake has been missing for almost two months, now."

* * *

It shouldn't matter—it _doesn't_ matter, Drake isn't his responsibility, isn't his concern—but Jason just can't get it out of his head. Another fallen bird, and rather than stopping, Bruce is still charging forward, full speed ahead.

Rather than going straight back to Gotham, he hangs around, sneaking onto the Batplane when Robin heads back at the end of the weekend. "Relax," he says when she goes on the defensive as soon as he steps out of the shadows. "I just wanna talk. Tell me more about how Drake disappeared."

"Why? What do you care?"

"We should look out for each other, if Batman isn't going to," Jason says. He mentally tests the words, trying to find fault with them, and is more than a little surprised he can't. Perhaps he originally came to Titans' Tower with less than altruistic intentions in mind, but somewhere along the way this shifted from being about him and Bruce and grew to be about all of them, all the Robins Batman has managed to fail.

"'Look out for each other?' You tried to kill me!"

"I tried to maim you," he corrects automatically. "And really, I was gunning for Drake. Haven't got any beef with you."

"You shouldn't have any with Tim, either! He's never done anything to you aside from look up to you!"

"He replaced me!" Jason shouts at her. "He replaced me," he repeats in a quieter voice. "I wasn't in the ground a full six months before he was taking my name, my job, my costume, my _place_."

Robin's head snaps around and she glares fiercely at him. "What a huge pile of horse crap and hypocrisy. I already told you—it's not and never has been exclusively your name, job, or costume, and no one's ever taken your _place_ ," she snarls. "Every single Robin that comes after is gonna get reminded of Jason Todd, the boy Batman failed. He piles on the armor and the training and we try and try and _try_ and we're never ever going to be good enough because we're never going to be _you_ and he's never going to be who he was before you died. Tim didn't become Robin to _replace_ you, he did it to try and _fix_ Batman, to try and keep him from running himself into the ground out of grief and regret and _pain_."

"I… What?" Jason isn't exactly sure how Drake became Robin, but he always assumed Bruce went out of his way to find someone as completely different from Jason as possible. The way Robin is talking now, it sounds less like Bruce went looking for a replacement and more like Drake forced himself into the job.

"Batman didn't even _want_ another partner after you and Tim didn't want to be Robin, but someone had to slap some sense into the idiot and no one else was available," Robin snaps. "Tim idolizes you and Batman, and he didn't want to let you down by letting your dad get himself killed when he could help." She sniffs, rubbing her nose. "Stupid self-sacrificing idiot, never thinking about his own safety. Not then, not now."

Jason isn't sure how Drake even knew about him outside the mask, but Robin's words certainly provide food for later thought. "You think he got in over his head and that's why he disappeared."

"All I know is he went into an alley, something happened, and he never came out. That's all anyone knows," she says. "He gave everything back when he quit the cape, he didn't have any kind of weapon, any armor, anything. But he still had to snoop, had to poke at things he had no business poking, not anymore. And now my friend is gone and not even the best detective in the world can find him."

"Ha," Jason snorts, shaking his head. "Just because B claims to be the best doesn't mean he always is. Now, what can you tell me about this alley? There's gotta be something Batman missed. No one ever truly vanishes without a trace."

* * *

Robin does one better than tell Jason about the alley Tim Drake disappeared from. She shows him actual CCTV footage of the event, taken on the street that the alley branches off of. "There's no camera for the alley itself, and the view is partially blocked, but at least we know where it happened," she explains as they watch Drake on the screen, his demeanor changing from a lazy stroll to a cautious creep as something apparently catches his attention. "I think he heard someone in trouble and knew no one else would get there in time, so he tried to help all by himself." On the Batplane's screen, Drake picks up a discarded length of pipe from where it's sticking out of a nearby trash can, then disappears out of view.

Nothing happens for several excruciating minutes, long enough that Jason grumbles, "Wait, is that seriously all?"

Robin shushes him. "Just wait."

He's about to ask what for when the mouth of the alley lights up with a brilliant flash, bright enough that it momentarily overwhelms the limited monochrome capabilities of the camera, turning the entire screen white. "What the actual _fuck_."

"I only have this because Oracle went back over Tim's route home and pulled it when we learned he was missing," Robin says, still staring at the screen. "Batman went all over that alley and didn't find any sign of what happened—no residue, no scorch marks, nothing. We've been trying to work it, but with no evidence and no witnesses there's not really anything that can be done."

"No witnesses, right," Jason says, rolling his eyes under his hood. In his experience, there are always witnesses when it comes to a public place like this. Maybe not the kind that Batman necessarily thinks of or knows how to find, but they're definitely there, silently sneaking along and doing their damndest to slip through the cracks. "We'll see about _that_."

* * *

Though they've formed a sort of truce and Jason is leaving off harassing the Bats until he gets to the bottom of this, he stops short of letting Robin take him all the way back to the Cave. "You know if you do that it'll be a toss up between B locking me up so he can poke and prod to his heart's content and him turning me over to Gordon," he tells her when she offers.

"Ugh, tell me about it. He's a paranoid freak who's weirdly possessive of this city—heck, he kept trying to get me to quit the cape right up until he gave me Robin," she says, wrinkling her nose. "You may not follow his rules, but neither do some of his Justice League buddies and you don't see him trying to stick _them_ in Blackgate."

Jason grins at that, though she can't see it through the hood. He likes Brown, he's decided. While she may be Robin now, she's still very much her own hero with her own thoughts and opinions, and he isn't worried she's going to blindly follow Batman to an early grave the way he was with Drake. "I'll contact you if I find anything," he tells her as he straps on a parachute.

"You better," she grumbles, punching him lightly in the arm. It has none of the force behind it that her hits held during their fight, but he still winces and makes a show of rubbing it. "Weenie."

"Hey. You've got a mean right hook," he teases as steps up and releases the hatch. He's just about to jump when she stops him, catching his wrist.

"Even if it's just to say you're just as stumped as the rest of us, keep in touch? It's like you said—us Robins, we need to stick together."

"Maybe." Shaking off her hand, he steps back, shouting over his shoulder, "Though I'm not gonna be stumped."

* * *

He has to waste some time taking stock of things and making sure all the various parts of his fledgling criminal enterprise are still in working order after a weekend away, but that only takes a couple hours. It's not long before Jason is walking down a familiar street, ready to get to the bottom of this missing Robin business. Ex-Robin. Whatever.

The neighborhood is in a nicer part of town than what he's familiar with, closer to middle rather than upper-middle class, which is yet another odd thing about the whole affair. This is a decent area, someplace a kid should have no trouble walking through in the middle of the afternoon. Still, it's Gotham, and that means some of the gritty tarnish works its way into all kinds of unexpected places.

Case in point, Jason isn't in the alley for more than ten minutes when he knows for a fact that the Bats were wrong in assuming there were no witnesses to whatever happened. Well, probably wrong, at least.

Markings in the back of the alley, scratched into the brick of a building along with a nearby half caved-in crate all speak to this having been someone's squat not long ago, despite the niceness of the neighborhood. He's not surprised—an alley this narrow, with at least three exhaust vents that he can see opening up onto it? In the colder months, it's got to be something of a heat trap, ideal for someone looking for a place to stay warm and dry when they can't risk showing up at the shelters.

Further searching reveals that there's a loose board in the tall fence at the very end, letting it swing sideways just enough to let someone through and keeping the alley from being a true dead end like all the Bats assumed. Granted, the opening in the fence is nowhere near large enough to allow a muscled and well-fed teen Drake's size through, but considering that brilliant flash, Jason's thinking the kid didn't leave in such a mundane way.

The fence is tall enough that Jason wouldn't have a chance of getting over it without some additional help. He takes his grapple out now and shoots it, making sure it's secured before he lets it pull him up just enough so he can use the fence to help him over the rest of the way. On the other side he releases the grapple, winding it up again as he scans the area. Another street, though this one without a break in the sidewalk for an alley. Dead at this time of night, but it can't hurt to check out all the nooks and crannies, see who's hanging about still, if there is anyone.

* * *

The hour is too late for him to get anything more done tonight, so he heads back to his current safehouse to crash for a bit and get some much needed sleep before he braves the lair of the dragon.

Jason manages nearly five hours of fitful, restless sleep, coming out barely feeling any better than he did when he lied down. He knows it's anxiety over the next step he has to take, but he also knows it's necessary. There was a child in that alley, a witness to whatever fate befell Drake. From the evidence he saw there, it's unlikely the kid came out unscathed. If they survived, if they weren't stolen away by whatever took Drake, there's only one place the kid could have gone for help, after. Or, well. Only one place they could have gone that wouldn't have eventually trickled back to the Bats.

He waits until a respectable hour before heading out once more. It's easy enough to slip across the rooftops of Crime Alley, watching as a city he's been away from for far too long wakes up and starts its day all around him. The regular patterns of life, patterns he knew like the back of his hand as a kid.

Arriving at his destination, he drops down to street level and jimmies open a window, absentmindedly disabling the security as he goes. Shoddy system, he'll have to talk to Robin about having a word or two with the big man about that later. He's not good for much, but at least his resources could help some here.

For now, he slips inside, carefully shutting the window behind him and settles in to wait for his prey.

Her pattern is just the same as he remembers it, and he's there for less than ten minutes when the door cracks open and the office's owner comes in, flipping on the light to combat the early morning gloom. "I know you're new to the neighborhood," she says as she leans down to lock her purse away in one of the drawers of the filing cabinet, "but I prefer your lot use the waiting room. You don't have to sneak in like a criminal when you need help, I'll treat you just the same as everyone else." She barely even glances at him as she straightens and moves to her desk, sitting herself down behind it.

"Good to know the rules haven't changed while I've been gone," Jason says, stepping forward to take one of the two chairs across from her. "I'm here for help, Doc, but not the medical kind."

Doctor Leslie Thompkins frowns and steeples her fingers. "If you're familiar with how I operate, you should also realize that the only aid I give people like you is of the medical variety. I don't get involved in the business of Gotham's masks."

"Except for how that's completely bogus. You tell the rogues that, but if there's something that really needs doing, someone that desperately needs help, you'll share information with the Bats."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, her expression turning even colder.

Jason sighs. It probably would have worked better to have Blondie do this, but he said he'd take care of it and he'd hate to go running to Robin every time he hits the smallest stumbling block. "C'mon, Doc. We both know not approving of the Bat doesn't stop you from taking advantage of his methods sometimes."

"I really must ask you to leave now. I don't appreciate strangers breaking into my office under the best of circumstances, and I like it even less when those strangers proceed to make unfounded accusations."

"A stranger? Gotta admit, I'm a little hurt." Reaching back, Jason cracks the seal on the hood and takes it off, setting the helmet on the edge of the desk. "After all, you and I go way back."

It takes her a moment, but he can see exactly when she places his face. He wore a domino under the hood like always, but Doctor Thompkins has more than a little experience when it comes to recognizing faces under masks. "Good lord. I heard rumors, but I didn't think… Jason?"

He cracks a smile, tilting his head to the side. "Hey. It's been a few years."

"Jason, you _died_." She's on her feet now, coming around the desk and reaching for him, stopping just short of touching when he flinches slightly.

He winces. The flinch was unintentional, he just finds it hard to let people close outside a fight after what happened the last time he let his guard down. Swallowing down fear he knows to be unfounded with this woman, Jason tilts his head forward so her hands touch his cheeks. "Obviously, I got better." Eventually.

"I heard… Alfred said you're at odds with your family now. That you're more criminal than vigilante these days."

Jason snorts, rolling his eyes. "Maybe in some people's eyes." Because Bruce has tunnel vision and thinks every person is exactly like him, refuses to acknowledge that different people have different methods. He sighs and bats her hands away. "And I'm not really even doing that these days. Doc, I'm looking for a kid."

"What, some poor wretch driven to dealing by poverty and circumstances that you want to execute? Forget it, Jason. I'm not going to help you commit murder just because I set your broken arm when you were ten."

"No, I mean an actual kid. Probably under twelve, a little thing," he explains, leaning over to hold his hand just a few feet off the floor. "Scrawny, living on the streets, probably. Would've come in injured a couple months back."

"As you know, that could describe any number of children in this city," she observes. "What business do you have with this one?"

"I just need to talk to them," Jason assures her. "I think whoever this kid is, they might have some information on a missing person case I'm working."

"My understanding was that you don't do 'cases' anymore," she observes. "You're more of a guns-blazing troublemaker."

"This is different. This is… I promised someone I would find this person. Really, I just want to talk to the kid. They would have been squatting in an alley off of Westgate Street over in Burnley when they got hurt, might have had some pretty crazy stories about how it happened."

Doctor Thompkins leans back against her desk, studying him. "I may have treated a child about that size with some unusual burns a month or two back."

"Please, can you tell me where I can find them? There's a good chance they witnessed the abduction of another kid. Talking to them could keep me from wasting a lot of time barking up wrong trees," Jason pleads, forcing himself to meet Doc Thompkins's gaze even though he's more than a little afraid of what he might see there.

Surprisingly, it's mostly sadness, a smidge of regret, a decent-sized dollop of concern. None of the disappointment or anger he expected, though when he thinks about it, that's hardly surprising. The doctor has never been happy about Batman's crusade, has always had strong feelings about him taking kids out in the field with him. She's more likely to blame Batman than Jason for what happened in Ethiopia, even if none of Jason's death was ever Bruce's fault. 

He pushes those thoughts away, forces himself to focus on what the doctor is saying instead.

"I can give you a list of places you may be able to find her, but I don't know how much help she can be. I'm not sure how she ended up in Gotham, but her English is pretty limited."

"Armenian, right?" Jason checks, remembering the clumsy words he saw scratched in the alley. "No problem. Learned that one ages ago."

* * *

The first two locations on Thompkins's list are a bust, but Jason knows he's hit gold when he sees a skinny leg disappear around the corner as he approaches the back alley that makes up the third. Glancing down it, everything seems still—including the wooden crate against a back wall, half-blocked by a piece of cardboard.

"Hey, Sofi," he says gently, crouching down until he can sit on the grimy pavement a good eight feet away from the crate. Choosing his words carefully, he switches languages before saying anything more. "I'm called Red Hood. I know I look scary, but I'm a friend of Doctor Thompkins, from the clinic. I just want to talk to you for a bit. About the bright light and what happened off Westgate Street two months ago."

There's some scuffling and after a long time the cardboard shifts to the side, tiny fingers curled around the edge. "I didn't do anything," a young girl replies in the same language. "I was just napping, and then the monsters came."

Monsters? Jason's not sure he likes the sound of that. "The monsters are what made the light?"

"Uh-uh. The big flash came when the first monster hurt the second one. It made everything green, like a firework! But all the flashes were green."

"There was more than one flash?" Jason asks, his heart pounding in his chest. This is not at all what he expected when he watched the CCTV footage with Robin, but that was black and white, no color. Limited information.

"I guess…" The cardboard shifts aside a little more, enough that he can see the outline of a face. Jeez, the kid can't be more than eight, and that's with him being incredibly generous. "I mean. There was a lot of green, and it glowed, but I didn't stay after the big flash, because the boy told me to go."

"The boy," Jason repeats, latching onto that. "Did you see what happened to him? Did the monsters take him? Was he alive when you left?"

"He hit the first monster with a pipe," the girl says, finally scooching out of her hideyhole enough that he can see her fully. Sure enough, there are bandages all up her arm, grubby but otherwise well cared for. "He hit the monster and then he told me to run, to go to Doctor Leslie for help."

Jason narrows his eyes—Tim Drake is pretty smart, but he's fairly certain the kid doesn't know a lick of Armenian. Still, it's none of his business if Sofi wants people to think she doesn't have any English when she knows at least enough to follow simple instructions. "I'm trying to find the boy," he explains. "He hasn't been home since he helped you. His friends miss him and are worried about him."

"Sorry," she says, shaking her head. "He said to get out of the alley and run as fast as I could, so I did."

Jason sighs, then nods. It's not as much as he'd hoped for, but every little bit of new information is more than he had before. "Thanks. You've helped more than you know," he says. He digs a wad of bills out of his pocket and stuffs them under a discarded empty takeout container. "Get yourself a few good meals and some warmer clothes, kid. You're gonna freeze when the temperature drops."

The girl's eyes dart to the container, then back to him as he rises to his feet and starts to back out of the alley. "Mr. Hood, wait," she says, and he stops.

"Yeah?"

She pulls down the piece of cardboard she's been using as a door and draws her finger over, pressing the nail into the surface. "The second monster, the one that made all the flashes? He had a picture on his shirt. Like this." When she holds up the cardboard, it shows a circle, sandwiched between two lines, and another circle surrounding them. "Do you know what it means?"

"Yeah," Jason says, exhaling slowly. "Yeah, I definitely do. Thank you."

"He was really brave, that boy," she says, dropping the cardboard and edging over to the cash. "I hope he's okay."

"You're not the only one, kid."

* * *

It's late afternoon by the time he gets back to the safehouse, and Jason crashes almost right away, only stopping long enough to reset the security and shuck off his jacket, boots, and mask. He got a less than stellar good nap earlier, and talking to Doc Thompkins was exhausting in a way he didn't expect it to be—he's asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He's jarred awake less than an hour later by the incessant jangle of his current burner, and he can't say he's exactly awake when he answers it. Otherwise he might have waited.

_"Just calling to see how things are going with the project,"_ Robin says, sounding way too cheerful considering the topic of conversation.

"They're going," Jason allows, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He probably should update her since he thinks he needs her help before he can get any further with this, but he's been doing everything on his own for so long now that it's hard to take that step.

_"Just asking, since Leslie stopped by for a chat with Alfred today, and I think you may have been the primary topic of conversation."_

Jason swears under his breath. When he made the decision to talk to Doc Thompkins, he'd forgotten that while she doesn't always see eye-to-eye with Bruce, she and Alfred are regular gossip buddies. "I needed her help tracking down a lead," he hedges. "I didn't give her the details, just that I'm working on a missing person case."

_"I think they were just talking about you, not what you're up to,"_ Robin reassures him. _"Which is good, because the last thing we need is B getting all up in your business."_

"Don't I know it," he grumbles. "Hey, I've had a break with the case, but I'm going to need your help to take it any further. You've got connections I don't."

_"Eh, I wouldn't be so sure. I'm still new to a lot of this, my connections are limited to Oracle and some of the SF crowd. I'm not even allowed to use the big computer without supervision."_

Well, that's not exactly helpful, particularly since Jason is far from ready to involve Oracle. He always liked Barbara, sometimes finds himself missing her dry humor and quick mind in ways he can't exactly name. But there's also no doubt in his mind that she would have a great deal to say about Robin's alliance with him, none of it good. "Well, maybe the SF kids can help, then," he allows. "I found a witness who saw part of what happened in the alley. Seems like Drake stepped into a fight between two non-humans to save a kid and ended up biting off more than he could chew. There was a lot more to the light show than that one flash."

Robin swears, using language Jason's sure Alfred would have her washing out her mouth for if he heard, and his opinion of Robin number four ratchets up another notch. _"Goddammit, Tim. What the hell did you get yourself mixed up in? Stupid idiot."_

"There's more. Apparently all those flashes? Bright green. And from what my witness told me, one of the non-humans was dressed as a Green Lantern."

_"Oh, hell. Well, I guess that's a lot more than what we had before. I'm guessing you want to talk to Green Lantern next? I haven't worked with any of them myself, but I think some of the team has. One of them could probably swing an introduction, though you'll likely have to take them along."_

Jason is reluctant to get yet another kid involved in all of this, but she probably has a point. Trust is something that has to be won between heroes, and his recent actions have hardly endeared him to the majority of that community. "Think I could tag along on your next trip?"

_"I believe that could be arranged. Though, actually, there's something else I'll need you to do first."_

"What?" he asks, more than a little cautious.

_"Just gotta do a little something for the case, that's all."_

"I'm not talking to B or the others."

Robin snorts. _"I'm not_ that _cruel. This will be a quick thing, no worries. I'm texting you an address, you can meet me there when it's time."_

He doubts that, from what he's seen of her twisted sense of humor, but decides to give her the benefit of the doubt, despite his better judgement. It's probably a bad idea, but most of his ideas have been less than great lately, so at least it will have company.


	2. Chapter 2

When Jason pulls to a stop in an upscale part of Burnley on Friday, Robin is wearing civilian clothes and no mask and he finds himself doing a double-take. "Did I miss a memo? I thought you said we were working the case."

"Yup," she says, putting extra stress on the _p_ as her fingers dance across her phone's number pad.

"But you're in civies?"

Tucking the phone away, she finally turns her attention to him, giving him a critical, up and down look. "I hope you have a T-shirt on under that jacket. It's bad enough that you don't have a regular helmet."

Jason does have a regular helmet, but he didn't see any point in wearing it to this meeting. "I thought we were doing cape stuff," he grumbles, taking off the hood, then the domino underneath. He bundles both of them along with his jacket into one of the bike's two side compartments, then steps back, feeling weirdly exposed. He hasn't really gone around the city much as himself since getting back, and those times that he has, it's never been in the bright light of day.

"Why the heck would I want to do stuff in costume at two in the afternoon?" Robin—Stephanie, he supposes, since she's out of uniform—asks, rolling her eyes. "I mean, yeah, sure, we're gonna do some cape stuff later, I guess, but for this first bit it's best to just be ourselves."

"If you say so," Jason grumbles, taking a moment to set the security on his bike before turning his attention back to her. "Alright, what've you got planned?"

She flashes him a smile, then grabs his hand and marches up to a nearby brownstone. "C'mon," she says. "I told them I'd keep them updated, but since you've taken over the case, I figured it's your turn now."

"Wait just a minute! Do I even get to know who it is we're visiting?"

"The Drakes, of course," she says as she pushes inside and leads him up the stairs. "Don't worry, they already know Tim was number three, so you don't have to hold anything back. Though, uh. They're not too happy with Batman at the moment? So maybe don't mention him if you can help it."

* * *

When she opens the door, Mrs. Drake is gracious and polite to Jason, then turns and embraces Stephanie like she's an old friend. "Stephanie! I know you said you're doing fine, but it's honestly such a relief to be able to confirm it," she says. When she releases the girl, she immediately holds her at arm's length, looking her over with a trained eye. Somehow, Jason doesn't think Robin III is the only bird the Drakes know the identity of. "We don't see nearly enough of you these days, not since Tim—" She breaks off, blinking furiously. "Please, come sit down and—oh, but who's this?"

"Hi, Dana. Remember how I said I had a friend who had more time to look into it? This is him. Jason, this is Dana and Jack Drake," Stephanie says. Looking past Mrs. Drake, Jason sees an older man with a sour expression on his face. Yikes, no wonder Tim ran off to be Robin at night if that was what he had to deal with at home. "Dana, Mr. Drake, this is my friend, Jason Todd."

"Thank you so much, Jason," Mrs. Drake says, taking his hand and gently squeezing it. "We were hoping the police would be able to turn something up, but it seems that whatever happened to Tim, it may be a little out of their league?" She shoots Stephanie a questioning look, like she isn't sure of something.

Then she's stepping aside and her husband is pushing his way forward, puffing himself up like he can somehow gain enough inches to glare down at Jason. "So, you're one of these costumed superheroes, huh?"

Remembering Stephanie's earlier warning, Jason shakes his head. "No sir, I can safely say I am not." Jack Drake obviously has some kind of beef with vigilantes, though Jason has no idea if that's because of his son's disappearance or something else entirely.

"He's hero-adjacent," Stephanie volunteers, dragging Jason inside the apartment and leading them all to the living room. Jason isn't sure if she's hurrying them along in order to keep from talking about sensitive things out in the open or in an effort to dance around exactly what 'hero-adjacent' means.

"I'm aware of certain people and aspects of the community," Jason carefully says as he takes a seat opposite Mr. Drake. "At this time, the only vigilante work I'm doing is tracking down information about your son. I know you may not have much confidence in me, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power to locate Tim and keep him safe until I can get him back to you."

Mr. Drake stares at him long and hard. "I'm not always the best at keeping track of the local news, but when Bruce Wayne pulls stunts, they tend to kick up enough of a fuss that people are still talking even months later. Like when he took in that circus orphan. Or when he adopted a boy from Crime Alley. People talked even more when the second boy suddenly and unexpectedly died just a couple years later."

"Jack, I don't see what that—"

"If you're asking if I'm the same Jason Todd that Wayne adopted and buried—yes, I am," Jason says.

"Jason, is that really a good idea?" Stephanie hisses at him.

He ignores her. As soon as she told him who they were visiting, he made the decision to be completely open with them about his history in regards to Robin. They of all people need to realize the kind of job their son took on, the kind of danger he may be in.

"I can't tell you how it is that I came back, since I don't even know, but I can say that I was your son's predecessor just like he was Stephanie's."

"Is that why you're doing this?" Jack Drake snaps, still glaring daggers. "Because it helps Batman?"

Jason lets out a bark of a laugh, then glares right on back. "I'm doing this because there's a missing boy who needs to be found and protected. I'm doing this because Robins stick together and look out for one another, no matter what. I'm in this because _fuck_ Batman."

"Er," Stephanie says into the silence that follows. "Like I said. Jason's more… hero-adjacent these days. He doesn't work with Batman or the rest of Gotham's vigilantes—heck, he doesn't even really get along with us these days. But he was Robin, just like Tim, and he knows better than pretty much anyone just what that can do to a person."

"You think Tim is already dead," Mrs. Drake whispers, her face pale with anguish.

"I didn't say—"

"I knew blasted Wayne would get him killed! Running around in a ridiculous costume when he's a grown man, sticking his nose into things that are none of this business!" Drake snarls, looking about ready to storm out and deck Bruce.

Normally, Jason would be completely behind him, but there are much bigger things at stake here than his beef with Bruce. "To be fair, I've been looking into Tim's disappearance and from everything I've found so far, I don't believe it had anything to do with his time as Robin," he says, projecting his voice so that he can be heard over Drake's angry grumbling.

Apparently he projects enough to break through the man's rage, since he gives Jason a very confused look. "What?"

"From everything I know and everything I've found out about your son while investigating this, I have every reason to believe this was a case of Tim being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mr. Drake, Tim went into that alley because he heard someone hurting a young child. I've spoken to the child and from everything she told me, it sounds like Tim's intervention saved her life. Sure, his time as Robin may have given him the skill to hold off the girl's attacker long enough to allow her to escape. But the thing that made him take notice, spurred him into action? That was a part of him long before he ever put on any mask."

"You know he's right, Jack," Mrs. Drake says, taking her husband's hand and squeezing it in her own. "Tim is a good person, and he's never tolerated bullies. If he heard someone in trouble, of course he would want to help."

"Fine," Drake huffs, though the anger is already disappearing from him, melting off in the face of his wife's calm. "But that doesn't explain what happened to him, why he's still missing—the flash on the video."

"Actually," Stephanie says. "Jason has a theory about that, too."

"Mr. Drake, Mrs. Drake—I know it sounds far-fetched, but I'm pretty sure your son was abducted by aliens."

* * *

"I can't believe you told Tim's parents he was _abducted_ by _aliens_ ," Stephanie—Robin, now, having shimmied into her uniform after takeoff—says later on the Batplane.

"Technically, I didn't lie. And the evidence does point in that direction," Jason maintains, leaning back in his seat. He still isn't sure how she's tricking the security system into not noticing an extra passenger, but he thinks it might have something to do with Batman not being sure how to handle a girl Robin and giving her a mile when it should just be an inch. " _I_ can't believe you're making me go back to Titans' Tower instead of just summoning your buddies to Gotham." The more he's thought about it over the week, the less sense it makes to go cross-country when he's probably going to have to travel to yet another place to talk to a Lantern. He's not sure who's currently filling the Green Lantern slot on the Justice League, but from what he vaguely recalls, most of the human Lanterns are based on the East Coast.

"Okay, first of all, it's like I told you—I've gotta stick to my regular schedule or else the boss man is gonna notice and start snooping. Also, I've been part of the big leagues for less than three months, no way have I got the connections or clout to help you out on my own. The others, though…"

"Still don't know why you think they'll be willing to help," Jason grumbles, taking off his hood. "I broke into the Tower, there's probably security footage of me beating you up, they'll attack me on sight."

"I think you mean footage of me kicking your ass."

He narrows his eyes. "I was winning."

"Oh, honey. No. No, you really weren't," she says, patting his cheek before leaning back to spin her chair around, cackling. "The great big bad Red Hood, brought down by an instep stomp."

Jason debates taking off his domino so he can glare at her more effectively. Discards the idea because really, it's just not worth it. "I still think it's taking a big risk, me going back to the Tower."

"Psh, don't be such a worry wart. Learning how to get around the security for Titans' Tower was pretty much the first thing Oracle taught me after I inherited the red and green. It'll be _fine_."

* * *

Weirdly, Jason's second (post-death) visit to Titans' Tower starts out almost exactly the same as his introduction to Tim Drake's family.

"Hey, guys," Robin says, poking her head into one of the Tower's bedrooms. It's already pretty crowded, with three other heroes sitting or lounging around the room. "Remember how I said I was getting some extra help on The Project? Well, this is him—the help, I mean." She all but shoves Jason into the room, then quickly hurries in after him, casting a furtive glance back behind them, like she's afraid someone might have noticed. Apparently she's not quite as confident about this particular plan as she pretended to be.

"Uh. Hi?" Jason offers, waving awkwardly. He wishes he'd put his hood on for this, though he supposes it's probably a bit more reassuring for the others to be able to see most of his face.

"Robin," the other girl in the room says slowly, "that's Red Hood. He tried to _kill_ you."

"Naw, he just tried to rough me up a bit. It's cool, we sorted it out and we're friends now," she says, waving a hand.

"Technically, I was only interested in hurting the third Robin, which she isn't," he offers.

"Not helping yourself there, Hood," she snaps, glaring at him. Robin sighs. "Look, we really have made good. Hood here was just concerned about Robin's safety—all Robins' safety, really. That's why he's helping me find Tim, because he wants to make sure nothing bad happens to him."

"You just said you wanted to _hurt_ him," the smaller of the two boys says.

"I was… working through some stuff at the time. I swear, I don't mean him any harm now. Robins are… It's one thing for you guys, you're all metas with super strength or speed or whatever. Robins, we don't have any of that. Just brains and bodies and sometimes some nifty toys. We're a lot squishier."

"Though some of the toys are _really_ nifty," Robin adds.

"Holy crap," says the final kid, the one that's been quiet up until now, too busy glaring at Jason to apparently say anything. He's not dressed in any kind of fancy outfit, just a T-shirt and jeans, though Jason's going to go out on a limb here and guess he's probably Superboy, what with the big _S_ on his shirt and all. "You really are him, aren't you? The second Robin, the one who died."

"Wait, what?" the girl asks. Jason isn't entirely sure who she is—judging by her shirt, she should be Wonder Girl, but she doesn't look anything like Donna or Wonder Woman. "What are you talking about, Conner?"

"I, uh. Overheard Nightwing talking to Troia," Superboy mutters. He clears his throat and straightens his shoulders. "He said Red Hood was stirring up trouble in Gotham, that he and Batman wanted Robin to stay at the Tower for a while because they thought she could be a target, because Hood might be the second Robin, the one that came before T—that came after Nightwing."

"Wellareyou?" Suddenly, the smaller boy is right in front of Jason, staring up at him, talking so quickly his words blur together.

"I was Robin after Nightwing," Jason confirms, trying to inch away from the vibrating kid. "Died in the suit. Came back a little broken, went through some shit, got better." Mostly, as much as he'll ever be, probably. "Look, I know it's hard to believe, but I really do want to find Tim and bring him home safe. Being Robin is dangerous, it gives you confidence that makes you think you can do anything, makes you feel safe when you shouldn't, because it also paints a target on your back." He's speaking more to Robin now than the metas, because this is something she needs to hear. She's being careful, Batman's apparently taking even more precautions with her than he did with Tim, but that doesn't really make the job any safer than it was when Jason had it.

"We know," Wonder Girl says, taking a step forward, challenging him. "We've had other non-meta teammates, we know their vulnerabilities, but we also know they can be some of the best and strongest heroes. They have to work harder, think faster. Robin—Tim—he and the others saved our lives countless times, taught us that sometimes powers can be as much a problem as they are a blessing." Reaching out, she takes Robin's hand and squeezes it. "We know how lucky we are to have them. That it's our job to protect them just as much as it's their job to make sure we don't lose perspective."

"Cassie, you know I don't expect you to—" Robin starts to protest, but Superboy breaks in, shaking his head.

"No, but we will. You may not be Rob, but you're still Robin, you're still _ours_ , and that means we look out for you. Just like we look out for Tim, even though he can't wear the cape anymore." He places his hand on top of the girls' joined ones, and the last kid, the one with the crazy hair, adds his as well.

"We're inthistogether!" the kid declares, his words running together. "Gonnafindhimand save him. You said Batman didn'twantustoknow, but you told us anyway." He gives Robin a fierce, determined look. "You promised we could help."

She laughs, reaching across all their hands to squeeze the kid's shoulder with her free one. "Yeah, I did. And you guys can, because Hood's reached a point where he can't do anymore on his own."

They all turn their attention back to Jason and he shifts uneasily. The little kid is something of a mystery—there's nothing terribly recognizable about his costume—but the other two likely have powers and abilities similar to their predecessors, which means they're perfectly capable of obliterating him if they don't like what he has to say. "I need to talk to a Green Lantern," he explains. "I don't know exactly what happened to Tim, but all the evidence I've found points in their direction. They either know what happened, or can find it out."

Wonder Girl frowns, pulling away from her friends. "A Green Lantern? But metas aren't supposed to operate in Gotham. Not without Batman's permission, and if he knew one was there at the time, he would have asked about Tim ages ago." She glances to Robin, who nods in confirmation.

"Yeah, we all know that. But what if it wasn't a local Lantern? What if it was another one, someone passing through as a part of a mission? They wouldn't know the rules, wouldn't know where they shouldn't go," Jason says. Settling back against the wall, he explains to Tim Drake's friends exactly what he's found.

* * *

It takes some time to explain everything—and it does end up being _everything_ , just about, since Robin's friends insist on getting all the details about both the investigation so far as well as Jason's current agenda. He may hedge a bit on the latter, but true to her word, Robin does nothing but back him up and support him the whole time.

"I get that you want to know more," she tells Superboy at one point, "but until you've died and come back again like he has, I don't really think any of us are in a position to pass judgement on Hood's actions. He wants to help now, he's making an effort to do better. That has to be enough."

Jason is grateful that they leave it alone. There are parts of his life he never wants to share with anyone, particularly not bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young heroes like these. They've seen some bad shit, but nothing like what he's gone through, and he doesn't know that he'd ever want them to. It might teach them care and caution better than anything else, but there are some trials that he wouldn't ever want to wish on anyone. Which is why it's so important that he be the one to track down Drake and bring him home.

"He'sourfriend," the little guy, Impluse, says in a rush, his words running into one another. "Weshoulddoit."

"You have school, family, responsibilities to yourselves, your team, your mentors," Jason tells them. "I don't have any of that. No one's gonna care or even notice if I drop everything to run off into space for a week or ten."

"Hood," Robin says, turning to him and laying a hand on his arm. "They'd care if you told them. If you let them in again. They care now, whether you like it or not."

He snorts, shrugging off her touch. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. You forget, I was a part of that shit show long before you ever put on a mask, Blondie. I know exactly how much they care now." Batman cared just enough to put the Joker in Arkham, a place he hasn't even stayed since Jason's death.

"Hood has a good point," Wonder Girl says before Robin can restart that old argument. "If the trail leads into space, we can hardly take the time to follow it. Not as long as we're doing this on the side." Which they have to do, if they don't want Batman knowing that Robin didn't follow his orders and keep Drake's disappearance a secret from his friends.

"I don't like it," Superboy grumbles. "If he's out there somewhere, it should be one of us to get him back, not some stranger."

Robin laughs. "Oh, Hood's hardly a stranger to Tim. Not from the stories he used to tell me."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jason demands, turning to her. As far as he's aware, he and Drake only ever interacted the one time, back when he did that side job for Elliot while still doing recon on Gotham. He's not proud of how he behaved back then, is sure it's bound to complicate things when he needs Drake to trust him if—when—he finds him. 

She just smiles and shakes her head. "He has some weird hobbies, that's all."

"I don't—" he starts to say, but he breaks off when the bedroom door suddenly opens.

"Hello. What are you all doing holed up in here instead of using one of the—Jason?" The door swings open the rest of the way and Donna Troy stands there in the frame, staring down at Jason with an expression that's equal parts confusion and delight.

"Hey," he says, his voice breaking despite his best efforts. "Long time no see."

"Red Hood is working a missing person case with me," Robin volunteers into the silence. "A kid was taken off the street in Gotham, and Hood found evidence indicating that a Green Lantern was involved in the abduction. We were asking the others for help getting us in touch with one of the Lanterns on Earth, since I'm still such a newb and everything."

Donna startles slightly, apparently having forgotten the presence of other people in the room besides Jason. "I would think it would be easier to just ask Batman or Nightwing. Or even Oracle. Any of them could do the same and likely with greater ease."

"Yeah, well. I'm not exactly in the Bats' good books at the moment," Jason grumbles, crossing his arms and glaring up at her, daring her to dispute the statement. "If we can avoid involving them, I'd prefer it."

"I was just about to take them to see Green Lantern," Wonder Girl volunteers. "Everything's fine. You don't need to get involved."

"Uh huh. And if everything is fine, why are the five of you meeting in secret like this?" Donna asks, before turning to Robin. "For the future, it works better to loop the Tower's security footage instead of erase it when you want to hide a guest."

Robin flushes but still firms her jaw. "Hood's last visit to the Tower didn't go so great. We didn't want to freak anyone out when he came by again, that's all. Anyway, we were just about to leave, like Cassie said." She springs to her feet and starts for the door. When Jason and Wonder Girl move to join her, Donna holds out a hand, stopping the girls.

"Why don't you stay here and let me do this?" she suggests. "It's clear there's something going on here that you five would like to do on your own, and I respect that. However, Robin isn't wrong in her worry that we've been put on alert when it comes to Red Hood. While I'm sure Green Lantern has no reason to distrust you, he may not know you well enough to believe you when you assure him of Jason's good intentions."

Robin bites her lip, clearly conflicted. "I mean… it'd probably be pretty noticeable if you and I both disappeared for half the weekend, even with Impulse and SB to cover for us." She pauses, and Jason doesn't doubt she's looking in his direction behind the lenses of her mask. "You okay with this, Hood?"

The less Robin is involved, the greater chance this whole thing has of escaping Batman's notice. At the same time, Donna was pretty close with Dick, back in the day. "Only if you promise to keep Nightwing out of it," he tells the woman.

"He misses you, Jason. You know he'd want to help any way he could."

"Yeah, well. Maybe I'm not ready for his kind of help yet. I might be, eventually. But not now," he grumbles, eyes sliding away so he doesn't have to see her entreating look.

"I'll respect your wishes, then, and won't tell him about any of this."

"Really?" he asks, more than a little surprised that she should agree so readily.

"Of course," she says, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. "You forget—you're my friend also."

"Oh, well. I guess that's okay, then." He glances back at the kids—all of them, but Robin in particular. "I'll keep you updated as best I can."

"Good luck," she says. "I know you can do it."

Jason blinks. It's been a long, long time since someone has had that kind of faith in him.

"Come on," Donna says, tugging him along. "We have a Lantern to bother."

* * *

Flying across the Midwest with Troia is distinctly different from doing it in the Batplane. "I don't know," Jason shouts somewhere above Nebraska or wherever they are now. The sky's begun to darken, either from the passage of time or the curve of the Earth, so they must have covered a decent distance by now. "I think this might have gone better if you'd waited to trim Robin from the group until _after_ we got to wherever we're going." As it is, he's incredibly grateful for his helmet, which is definitely saving his hearing at this point.

"I believe he's giving the current Robin a bit more privacy than her predecessors because she's a female, but even Batman would notice if his partner started taking the plane on unapproved trips."

She has a point, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. "Yeah, but at least the Batplane has barf bags."

Donna laughs, but does make the effort to slow down slightly. "I keep forgetting that you didn't get a lot of travel-by-meta when you were Robin. This must be quite a rare experience for you."

"Thanks," he says sometime later. "For not giving the kids a hard time when you found them. And for helping me."

"You're not the only one who had some trouble adjusting to life again after an untimely death," Donna says, which is certainly news to him.

"Wait, you _died?_ " This is definitely the first time he's heard anything like _that_.

"For a time. When I came back, it was… complicated. I wasn't exactly the same person I was before, but many found it difficult to understand that, even those I was closest to. And it was hard for me as well, when I couldn't just pick up my old life and resume it where I left off."

"Yeah, I get that." He didn't even get a chance to try and pick up where he left off. Talia took that from him, though even if she hadn't, Batman had already replaced him as Robin by the time Jason clawed his way out of the ground. Replaced him with Drake, already discarded and forgotten about by Batman. He swallows. "Hey, can you do something for me?"

"Something more than fly you across the country and introduce you to my ex-boyfriend?"

"He's your—uh, never mind, not relevant." Jason swallows, clearing his throat. "There's a good chance I'm gonna have to follow Green Lantern into space to see this whole thing through. Which, fine, I can do that. Just… I'm worried about Robin. It's not the safest job, I know that better than anyone. I'd feel a lot better if I knew there were people on Earth making an effort to keep an eye on her."

"The Teen Titans were slow to warm up to her when she replaced the previous Robin, but she has since earned their respect. They will protect her and keep her safe, Jason."

"Oh, sure, I know they will—they said they would, made it clear that's a top priority of theirs. But I was thinking more in terms of when she's in Gotham. Dunno if you've noticed, but Batman isn't exactly the best at keeping his head out of his ass when it comes to parenting."

Donna throws back her head, laughing long and hard. "I'm well aware, considering the number of times Nightwing has expressed similar sentiments. No need to worry there, either. Robin was something of a protégé of Oracle's before she took up her current mantle, so both she and Nightwing have made it their responsibility to keep an eye on her and train her. Batgirl as well, I believe, though I have had very little to do with her."

Jason has gone out of his way to avoid the girl currently running around as Batgirl as much as possible, so he just nods. "That's good to know. Thanks."

"I realize it's not the greatest thing to hear, but Dick really does regret how he treated you before, Jason," she tells him. "He was angry at Batman, not you, and it tore him apart when he learned what happened to you, that he wouldn't have a chance to make up for his earlier bad behavior. He saw first Tim and now Stephanie as chances to redeem himself, to do a better job as an older brother, and he's made sure to stick with it. Even when he's butting heads with Batman, he's always made himself available for Robin, no matter what."

"Good. That's… good. Thanks, Donna."

"Of course," she says as she slows down and begins to circle.

"Uh, something the matter?" Glancing down, he sees a warren of streets and buildings, twinkling lights reaching out in all directions for as far as he can see. They apparently left open country far behind when he wasn't paying attention. "Where are we?"

"New York City. Sorry, it always takes me a minute to reorient myself when I come from a different direction than usual. Let's see, if Central Park is over there, and the Empire State Building is over there, then that means… Aha, we're ten blocks south of where we should be, no wonder I was confused."

"I don't know how you can find anything like this. Everything's so far below."

"Says the man used to swinging around like a monkey and identifying buildings by gargoyles."

"It's a legitimate method of navigation!" Jason protests, then gulps as Donna swoops in low. "Uh, shouldn't we be more careful? Don't want to exactly draw attention to ourselves, right?"

"Light pollution is such that it's difficult for people to really see much of anything this high up," she reassures him as she sets them down on a fire escape. "And besides, we're already here."

"I'd point out that I still have nosey neighbors who are capable of looking out windows," a new voice says, and Jason jerks around to see a head sticking out the window that opens out onto the platform. "But I guess no one really looks out when all they expect to see is another building. Hey, Donna. I guess this isn't a social call?"

"Hello," she says, her face lighting up with obvious pleasure. If this guy is her ex, they clearly don't hold any grudges over whatever ended their relationship. "Sorry, but no. Jason, this is Kyle Rayner. Kyle, this is—"

"—Red Hood," Jason interrupts, stepping forward so he can glare down at the man. "I need to know everything you can tell me about a Green Lantern that was in Gotham City, two months ago."

"Yeah, no. I don't see why that would be any of your business," the man says, glaring right on back.

"Boys, please. You're both very scary and frightening, but you're not each other's enemies. Not in this, at least," Donna says, stepping between them. "Now, won't you at least invite us inside? Or is this a conversation you feel like sharing with all those nosey neighbors?"

The man grumbles, but steps away from the window, and Donna and Jason slip inside.

* * *

"I've heard about you, Hood. You've been terrorizing Gotham's Bats, no way am I telling you anything about Corps business," Rayner says as soon as he's closed and locked the window behind them.

"Kyle, Hood has been working through some difficult things, but he has the best of intentions in this," Donna says. "I'll personally vouch for him."

"Look, a boy walked into an alley in Gotham two months ago and never walked out. He hasn't been seen since. His friends are worried and I promised I'd do whatever I could to find him and bring him home," Jason explains.

"And that has to do with Lanterns how, exactly?"

"The one witness to whatever happened saw a bunch of flashing green lights and crap."

"So what? We're not the only ones who do green energy blasts. Starfire's starbolts are green, and there are a bunch of different energy weapons that are green," Rayner says, leaning against a wall and crossing his arms. The ring on his finger glows dimly in the half-lit room.

"Yeah, but generally when the one throwing green light around has that symbol on his chest, I tend to think 'Lantern,'" Jason says, gesturing to the ring. "Probably a silly assumption on my part, but hey, what do I know? It's not like I was trained to be a detective or anything. Oh, wait—I was."

"Donna?" Rayner's eyes slide over, like he's checking with her for confirmation.

"Hood—Jason—was Batman's protégé for a time," she explains. "Kyle, I believe him. He has no reason to lie about this."

Rayner sighs, his arms dropping. "It doesn't make sense, though. There aren't supposed to be other Lanterns in this sector right now, not unless it was a human one, and they all know better than to risk flying into Batman's stomping ground without asking first."

"My witness described both the Lantern and whoever they were engaged with as 'monsters,'" Jason volunteers. "I'm pretty sure neither one was human. I figured some off-world Lantern chased a criminal here and the kid I'm looking for got caught up somehow. If an alien committed a crime on Earth and a human witnessed it, would a Green Lantern take the human along as a witness to testify?"

"It's… possible. They're not supposed to be on Earth at all without clearing it first with the Justice League; Oa and the League have an agreement and everything. At the same time, a lot of Lanterns are used to operating freely in more advanced, space-faring societies and ignore the special guidelines for restricted planets," Rayner says, looking more than a little annoyed by the whole thing. "I wouldn't put it past whoever it was 'forgetting' to even check in with me before leaving because they didn't want to get torn a new one."

"I can believe that. Most mean well, but they often forget how scary it can be for more primitive people to have visitors from space swooping in with unusual powers. I saw it happen more than a few times with the Darkstars, and many of them were former Green Lanterns," Donna says, looking thoughtful. "Kyle, would a Lantern have let you know if a civilian was killed during an unsanctioned operation?"

Jason's heart clenches and he finds himself shaking his head. "No, it's not—there was no kind of biological residue, not like that. It's an abduction, not a murder." It has to be, because he should be the last one, the last Robin who died from just wanting to help.

Rayner frowns, shooting Jason a perturbed look. "They should have, but like I said, they may have been trying to avoid a reprimand. Something like that would definitely be recorded by the Lantern's ring and sent back to Oa, though. If nothing else, the victim's family would be entitled to a certain amount of compensation, since off-world Lanterns aren't cleared to be on Earth outside of extreme situations."

"I don't care about compensation. I want to know where the kid _is_ ," Jason snaps. "What happened to him, and why the hell no one thought to say anything to anyone about it."

"That's fair," Rayner says, and he steps away from the wall. As he does so, his ring flares, briefly blinding Jason. When he blinks away the spots, the other man is dressed in green and black, his eyes hidden behind an odd-shaped mask. "I'll have to go to Oa to get answers. I'll let you know what I find."

"Like hell you will," Jason growls, reaching out to grab a green-clad arm. "I said I'd see this through and I'm not about to sit back now. If you're going, I'm going with you."

"I don't care if you're doing a good deed right now, you're a _criminal_ ," Rayner says, trying to shake him off. "I can't take you to Oa!"

"What if I come too?" Donna asks, stepping up. "Like I said, I vouch for him. Jason is a good person with a good heart. He has suffered through many trials in recent years, but he's making an effort to correct his mistakes. I believe this mission is one that will do a lot to help him return to what he once was."

"But—"

"Not to mention," she adds, "you seriously owe me for some of the stunts you pulled."

Rayner winces, but nods. "That's… fair. Alright, you can both come, but he's _your_ responsibility."

"Thank you, Kyle," Donna says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "You're a true friend."

* * *

If Jason had realized that traveling through with a Green Lantern would mean going halfway across the universe with nothing more than a six-foot-diameter green bubble to protect them from the vacuum of space, he probably wouldn't have been so insistent that he tag along.

The trip isn't a pleasant one, though it's certainly improved by Donna's presence and he'd hate to think what it might have been like without her. Still, the whole experience isn't one he can really recommend, and the less said about it, the better.

* * *

Oa, when they reach it, is like something out of a big-budget science fiction movie. Jason had thought he understood what it meant when Rayner said they were headed to the headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps, but as they drop down through the atmosphere, it quickly becomes apparent that he really didn't get it at all. Most of the planet is desert, but the area where they land contains a vast city, full of towering buildings in impossible shapes. They set down in a plaza, and Jason can't get over how _clean_ everything is—it really does look like something made on a computer, but more because of the lack of dirt or weathering than the slick, futuristic feel.

"Right. I should probably check in and let someone know I'm here, but then we can head over to the Hall of Great Service and check out records, see what it has to say about any recent happenings in Sector 2814 and, more specifically, on Earth," Rayner says once the bubble has dropped, already turning and starting to walk away.

Pulling off his hood, Jason glances after him, then all around. This place is huge, there's no telling where Drake might be, if he's even here. No good way of tracking him down, not if there's a good chance whichever Lantern that took him is trying to hide his screw-up from whoever runs this whole show.

"Jason? Aren't you coming?" Donna asks, pausing to look back at him.

"Yeah, just… Give me a minute?" Reaching into the hood, he fiddles with the equipment, then raises it up. Taking a deep breath, Jason whistles into the neck of the hood, letting the internal microphones pick up and amplify the sound so it broadcasts loud and clear across the city. One high note, one low note, one medium.

"What the hell, Hood?! What kind of game do you think you're playing?" Rayner demands, doubling back to rush him.

"Shh," Jason says, his eyes scanning the area all around them. "Wait."

"What are we waiting for?" Donna asks.

"You'll s—" The rest of the word is cut off when a green ball of _something_ comes hurtling through the air, knocking all the breath out of Jason. He only just manages to keep his feet, staggering slightly under the added weight.

"I knew you would come! I mean, I didn't know, but I thought you might. I hope nobody's worried, I didn't think I'd be this long, but Kilowog said that since I was here already, I might as well stick around for training and—" The boy in Jason's arms breaks off as he's gently placed on the ground. "Wait. You're not Batman. What are you doing, doing the 'Robin, Report' whistle when you aren't Batman?"

"Tim," Donna says slowly. "What are you doing here?"

"Wait, Batman? _Robin?_ Hood, why didn't you _say_ the missing kid was Robin?!" Rayner demands, pushing forward.

Jason ignores them, just like he ignores the Green Lantern who joins them, also shouting and kicking up a storm. "Rayner," he growls. And then again, louder, cutting across all the noise. " _Rayner_."

"What?"

"What the _fuck_ is he wearing?!" Leaning in, Jason grabs the kid's arm and lifts it for the two other humans to see.

There, neatly resting on Tim Drake's finger, is a Green Lantern ring.

**Author's Note:**

> For the people incapable of reading the beginning notes: **This is meant to be the start of a new series.** If you want to leave a comment whinging about how "that's it?!" or "this can't be complete!" or "where/when is the next chapter???"—just **DON'T**. You aren't "encouraging" me, you aren't "showing your support," you aren't "a good and dedicated fan"—you are being an entitled asshole who, if anything, is only serving to "encourage" me to take even longer writing the next part. I'm not your trained monkey and I don't do tricks on demand.
> 
> [I have a tumblr!](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/) Come visit if you want ridiculous AU headcanons, rants about the English language (and/or educational publishing), history fangirling, adorable baby bats, and veeeeery occasional fanart. Also, because I am an actual human being with opinions of my own, sometimes I post or reblog things that reflect those opinions. If you can't handle the idea of someone existing in the universe and possessing opinions which differ from your own, you should not click that link.


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